Very Dissatisfied
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Zhou Jiao didn’t notice Jiang Lian’s abnormality. She was still struggling over how to explain the room full of mucus to the innkeeper when checking out.
…Should she tell the innkeeper that she was actually an octopus smuggler?
But what kind of octopus would leave sticky filaments on the ceiling!
It was like a damn spider spinning a web!
Zhou Jiao’s mouth twitched. She really wanted to ask Jiang Lian—As a monster, and a monster that lives in the ultra-abyssal zone, why was your method of nesting to spin silk?
Did that even make sense?
Zhou Jiao had never stayed in a cheap motel before and didn’t know that her situation wasn’t anything special at all—Cheap motels were located deep in the slums, where the lowest scum among the three religions and nine schools of thought resided.
To survive, these people either conducted illegal live streams in the guest rooms or sold contraband drugs. Sometimes, blood-splattering fights would even break out in the rooms.
—It was precisely because the room was filled with the scents of perfume, sweat, cheap cigarettes, contraband drugs, and the gunpowder smoke of homemade firearms that Jiang Lian had wrapped her in his tentacles.
He didn’t want her to be tainted by that kind of rotten stench—a smell filled with sin, death, and despair.
It would make her smell awful.
Apart from that, some black-market clinics were also set up inside cheap motels. They implanted pirated chips for those who couldn’t afford genuine ones.
So-called “pirated chips” were mostly defective products eliminated from legitimate production lines, but their damage to the nervous system was twice that of genuine chips.
However, in order to survive, these people had no other choice.
Suddenly, Zhou Jiao recalled that many people in the slums knew how to crack frozen credit chips. She had to give it a try—she couldn’t keep relying on pawning things to survive.
…She couldn’t even afford the cleaning fee for the room.
Thinking of this, she shifted her position in Jiang Lian’s tentacles, opened a website, and searched for “credit chip unfreezing.”
Perhaps because he had just been kissed by her, Jiang Lian’s tentacles were somewhat restless—sometimes hooking around her waist, sometimes clamping onto her ankle, and sometimes encircling her neck, slowly tightening as if he was about to strangle her in the next second.
Yet she didn’t feel any killing intent, leaving her completely baffled, not knowing what he was trying to do.
Zhou Jiao thought for a moment, then grabbed one of his tentacles, lowered her head, and gently rubbed her cheek against it—Ignoring its hideous and terrifying appearance, the cold and slippery texture didn’t feel like a monster’s limb at all. Instead, it was more like expensive silk sheets, exuding a faint chill. (TL: It feels like silk??)
In this era of global warming, such coldness was utterly refreshing to her.
Zhou Jiao rubbed against it without any mental burden and failed to notice that the moment her cheek touched it, the tentacle in her hand stiffened as if frozen, remaining motionless for a long time.
Meanwhile, Jiang Lian’s expression became even more rigid.
A few muffled hissing sounds echoed, and the fluorescent light above them suddenly went out.
Since the outside of the blinds was blocked by mountains of discarded waste, the room’s lighting instantly turned dim and murky.
Zhou Jiao didn’t pay it any mind.
Similar situations had occurred in the lab before—It was likely due to some powerful magnetic field in Jiang Lian’s body interfering with the surrounding voltage.
But what she didn’t know was that this only happened when Jiang Lian’s emotions were extremely intense.
The last time she encountered this, it was because—for the first time in half a year—Jiang Lian had felt the urge to kill her.
If she had looked up at that moment, she would have seen that Jiang Lian’s face had turned colder than a marble sculpture.
He coldly stared at the top of her head. The orbicularis oculi muscle had ceased contracting, giving him an extremely eerie and inhuman appearance.
Yet every two seconds, violent spasms would ripple across his facial muscles, making his entire face look more crazed and fractured than ever before, as if something was violently wriggling beneath his skin.
Zhou Jiao was getting a little carried away with her rubbing, nearly forgetting what she was supposed to be doing. She hurriedly pulled up the webpage and continued browsing.
The company deeply understood the principle that “blocking is not as effective as diverting.” Since the people’s real lives were so oppressive, they had to be given outlets to vent elsewhere.
Social media platforms were just one such outlet. Besides that, there was also the online black market.
Here, one could buy pirated chips that had changed hands countless times, as well as all kinds of holographic videos—most of them featuring bizarre stunts performed by online streamers in exchange for massive rewards. One could even buy simulated sensory recordings from underground clinics. The buyers of these recordings ranged from the poor to the rich.
The poor watched them to see the wealthy having their chips and high-end bionic organs extracted. The rich watched them to see people being butchered like livestock.
Zhou Jiao found a seller named “Professional Chip Unfreezing” and sent over her situation.
A few seconds later, the seller popped up with a “Chip Sharing” request.
Zhou Jiao sent a string of question marks: “???”
“Chip Sharing” sounded similar to “Screen Sharing,” but while “Screen Sharing” shared a computer screen, “Chip Sharing” involved sharing one’s mind.
Some thrill-seekers would randomly find people online to share chips with. According to them, it gave them a sensation similar to racing down a mountainside highway, as if an electric current was surging wildly through their spinal cord.
The seller’s request was practically no different from sexual harassment.
The next second, the seller also sent over a string of question marks: “??? Sis, what are you thinking? I just wanted to check your chip model.”
Seller: “Only company-issued chips can do spiritual interfacing. Off-brand ones can only transfer and receive funds. There are so many different chip brands flooding the market now—if you don’t share, how am I supposed to know which back-alley junk you bought? We’re all broke as hell here, so don’t be all fussy like those corporate chicks.”
Zhou Corporate Chick Jiao: “…………”
Seller: “……”
Drawing from years of experience in selling pirated chips, the seller actually managed to decipher the myriad meanings within Zhou Jiao’s ellipsis and hurriedly apologized:
“…Ah, so you really do use a company-issued chip. Sorry, sorry. My shop is small—I haven’t served many corporate executives before. Company chips are more complicated and have to be unfrozen offline. If you need it, I can send you the offline address.”
Zhou Jiao: “……Send it over.”
The seller sent a URL.
It was unclear how many layers of encryption the URL had gone through, but the loading speed was painfully slow. It took a full ten seconds before it barely managed to display a map.
The map was densely packed with green dots, each one marking the location of an underground black market shop.
This was Zhou Jiao’s first time coming into contact with something like this, and only now did she realize that these chip-unfreezing shops had already spread everywhere, proliferating across Yucheng like mold after the rain.
Perhaps because she had spent too much time online, Jiang Lian’s deep, icy voice suddenly rang in her mind:
“Chip Sharing request?”
Zhou Jiao: “Mm, my credit chip is frozen, so I wanted to find someone to help un…freeze…”
Before she could finish speaking, she saw the words “Connected” in the upper left corner, and her eyelid started twitching uncontrollably:
“…Can I ask why exactly you’re inside my brain?”
Jiang Lian’s voice carried a faint confusion, as if he didn’t understand why she was so agitated:
“I called you, but you didn’t respond.”
“And then,” Zhou Jiao nearly ground her teeth, “you saw that my chip was in a ‘Waiting for Connection’ state, so you just went ahead and connected?!”
Jiang Lian nodded, still not understanding why she was so agitated.
Zhou Jiao’s eyelid twitched violently.
The reason her chip was displaying “Waiting for Connection” was because of the “Chip Sharing” request the seller had sent over.
Although she had declined it, the AI detected the presence of a “known individual” nearby and assumed she still wanted to use this function, so it automatically remained in an active state.
Once the function was enabled, chips in close proximity could connect without requiring an “Accept” or “Decline” step.
For a moment, Zhou Jiao didn’t know what to say.
…She had no way to tell a monster not to casually connect to other people’s chips because it was an extremely intimate act.
Because Jiang Lian would definitely ask her why connecting to another person’s chip was an extremely intimate act.
But she didn’t know either!
Even now, Biotech had neither clearly defined nor widely promoted this function, yet humans had somehow instinctively developed and named it something incredibly evocative—Spiritual Interfacing.
Zhou Jiao’s expression turned complicated. For the first time, she realized how filthy human thoughts could be.
In comparison, monsters were as pure as a puppy that had accidentally gotten a water droplet on its nose.
Zhou Jiao was too tense. And whenever she was tense, her thoughts tended to scatter.
In an instant, dozens of nonsensical thoughts raced through her mind, including: “Why does he resemble a dog so much?” “Keeping a dog is so expensive, you have to pay over a hundred thousand in pet taxes.” “Can an octopus be kept as a pet?” “Is he actually an octopus?”—all sorts of absurd questions she would never have considered in a normal mental state.
At that moment, Jiang Lian stared at her for a few seconds before suddenly speaking:
“I understand now.”
Zhou Jiao: “……You understand what, exactly?”
He narrowed his eyes, appearing thoughtful: “Chips can regulate neuronal electrical activity, simulating excitement or euphoria. That sensation is similar to…”
Damn it, you actually figured it out?!
Zhou Jiao hurriedly interrupted him: “Yes, yes, yes! Exactly what you’re thinking! Let’s just talk in the real world instead. Talking like this is way too weird.”
This zero-distance contact sent her heart racing with panic, filling her mind with nothing but thoughts of how to make him disconnect.
Even though she had communicated this way before while working at the Special Bureau, the people she interacted with back then were all human—normal, rational humans.
They understood the fragility of the human brain and the importance of privacy. They only used this function for communication and would never randomly pry or intrude.
But now, Jiang Lian was inside her mind. It felt like a brat had barged into her prized figurine collection room—anxiously, she kept imagining him suddenly reaching out and slicing open a few of her most expensive figures.
The worst part was that she couldn’t disconnect on her own.
On one hand, it might anger him—and if he got angry, her life would be at risk. On the other hand, forcibly severing the connection might only make him… more curious.
This monster even knew about “regulating neuronal electrical activity.” If he wanted to, he could figure out Spiritual Interfacing in a matter of minutes.
Zhou Jiao had no choice but to endure it humbly and wait for him to leave on his own.
Having control over the situation taken out of her hands left her extremely frustrated.
Once she figured out how to send him back to wherever he came from…
At that time, she would take every single curse she had swallowed down during this period—
And smash them all into his face!
At that moment, her chin was lifted by a tentacle.
Jiang Lian lowered his head, looking down at her from above.
In that instant, the strange sensation in her mind swelled to its extreme.
He was still inside her head.
She could clearly feel his presence—even hearing the sound of him swallowing in his throat.
Everything about him was being converted into a special kind of electrical wave by the chip, flowing lightly through her brain.
Was it just her imagination?
His emotions seemed even more intense than hers.
When his gaze shifted downward and lingered on her lips, she saw his neuronal network topology light up in succession—like a brief yet dazzling burst of fireworks.
Zhou Jiao stiffened under his gaze.
She couldn’t help it.
She was already instinctively afraid of him, and she couldn’t distinguish between fear and the thrill of excitement.
And on top of that, he was still inside her mind.
Even though he had no idea how to use the chip to regulate neuronal electrical activity, the sheer fact that a terrifying, unknown, uncontrollable monster had invaded her brain was already an intensely overwhelming stimulus in itself.
Ah, she really was a freak.
Only someone like her would find it exhilarating to share a mind with a non-human being.
Suddenly, a flash of insight struck her—she wasn’t actually powerless to take back control.
Although she had no intention of developing any further bizarre relationship with Jiang Lian, she didn’t mind letting him experience the filth and treachery of the human world.
Just imagine—
A monster that had lived for an unknown number of years, who had been sleeping in the deepest layers of the ultra-abyssal zone, having done nothing but feed for its entire existence before arriving in the human world.
For such a mysterious and powerful creature, what would he think when his neurons were suddenly stimulated, engulfed by an unfamiliar tsunami of sensations?
What kind of expression would appear on that perpetually indifferent face of his?
Shock? Confusion?
Or…
The terror of believing he was about to die?
Just the thought of it made Zhou Jiao’s entire being surge with excitement.
But she was a cautious person. After pondering for a while, she forcibly suppressed this impulse.
After all, judging from Jiang Lian’s past actions, he would certainly be shocked, definitely confused, and after those—he would most likely become… addicted.
There was no need for her to invite trouble upon herself.
Zhou Jiao’s mind whirred rapidly, and she decided to deal with Jiang Lian using an old trick.
She tilted her head up and gave him a docile smile:
“…Dr. Jiang, disconnect from me and talk to me in the real world, okay?”
Jiang Lian had no interest in Chip Sharing whatsoever. The only reason he had connected was because he disliked Zhou Jiao being too focused on something else.
Nightmares were unacceptable.
Tentacles were unacceptable.
And strangers on the other side of the internet were even more unacceptable.
She was his.
Her hair, her eyebrows, her eyes, the bridge of her nose, her lips, her saliva, her sweat, her pheromones… The air around her, the fingerprints she accidentally left behind—all of it belonged to him.
Even her fear was his.
He didn’t like her feeling fear because of something else.
He much preferred watching her vibrant, scheming little mind at work.
She smelled better that way, too.
Jiang Lian stared intensely at Zhou Jiao. Behind his lenses, his pupils gradually contracted—until they were pressed into a narrow slit, something absolutely impossible for a human eye. Sharp, eerie, exuding a terrifying hunger that only a beast could possess.
He was agitated. Deeply dissatisfied.
He wanted her to look at him.
—But she was looking at him.
He wanted her to stay by his side.
—But she was lying on his tentacles. Just a few minutes ago, she had even rubbed her cheek against them, making his throat and chest tingle with a lingering numbness.
She had already done everything he wanted.
But—it wasn’t enough.
Still not enough.
What else did he want?
What else could he take from her?
The agitation in him surged, and the impulse to kill something returned.
Jiang Lian’s expression grew dark and cold.
A terrifying killing intent roared through his veins, rampaging wildly, pressing against his very being like an explosive force ready to detonate at any moment.
Yet, deep down, he vaguely understood—
This wasn’t just killing intent.
At least, not entirely.
Killing intent wouldn’t make his chest fill with this strange, tingling sensation.
And it certainly wouldn’t make him feel so… hungry.
Did he want to eat her?
No.
Though this sensation was similar to hunger, it wasn’t hunger.
If it wasn’t hunger, then what was it?
Jiang Lian stared at Zhou Jiao with cold indifference, laced with agitation.
What was this?
Could he find the answer in her?